A Gift of Leaves

What is the best measure of love? After mysterious events allow her to survive a brutal mugging, Storm struggles to understand what happened, and to identify the shadowy benefactor who intervened on her behalf. Her search leads to Michael, her seeming attacker, who hides a darker secret rooted in the sorcery of a now-extinct Native American culture. Their nascent love dies on the vine, and Storm loses interest in the issue of her survival; but when she develops a terminal illness, Michael returns from the shadows. The story he tells makes it clear that when she was attacked, her survival was assured by being in the right place at the right time. Now, with her life in the balance, Storm races to once again sleep beneath a certain tree on the night of a crescent moon. In the process, she learns a bittersweet lesson about true love, and sacrifice.